An analysis of major adjectival constructions in terms of the argument structures of adjectives---tough construction and W-class adjectival construction

本项目在词汇语义学的理论框架内对形容词结构进行了深入分析，该理论已经发展了二十年，并假设句法结构是其主要谓语（即动词）的论点结构的直接投影。本研究是动词语义学向形容词语义学的延伸。在主要的形容词结构中，我选择了TOUGH结构（即，It is easy to please John/约翰很容易取悦）和W-CLASS形容词结构（即，It is wise of John to do so/约翰这样做是明智的）。方法是首先考察这些形容词的细粒度词汇语义，然后阐明语义因素与句法特征之间的关系。在TOUGH构式“John is easy to please”中，to please和easy构成了主谓关系，而且它们共同作为一个复杂的前置词…More指示描述表面主语。也就是说，这句话可以改写为“约翰是这样的人，取悦他是很容易的。”“约翰很容易取悦”中的easy和“很容易取悦约翰”中的easy从论点结构上作为不同的词汇实体进行分析。前者是复杂谓词easy- please where to取悦满足其中一个参数的一部分，后者是一个独立谓词，采用参数结构[Theme (Experiences)]。对于W-CLASS形容词结构，争论的焦点是为什么只有这些形容词可以取NP。我已经说得很清楚了，这些形容词语义中的评价因素负责锚定PP。因此，对于像slow这样的形容词（John完成这项工作很慢），这个PP是不可能的，如“^* John完成这项工作很慢”。Of可以分析为实现相关行为主体和被评价对象的语言形式。如上所述，目前的研究认为，细粒度的形容词语义可以解释主要形容词结构的句法特征。少

This project is an in-depth analysis of adjectival constructions within the theoretical framework of Lexical Semantics, which has been developed for the last two decades, and assumes that the syntactic structures are direct projections of the argument structures of their main predicates, i.e., verbs. The present research is an extension of verb semantics to adjectival semantics. Among the major adjectival constructions, I have chosen TOUGH constructions (i.e., It is easy to please John/John is easy to please) and W-CLASS ADJECTIVAL constructions (i.e., It is wise of John to do so/John is wise to do so.). The approach is that first I examined the fine-grained lexical semantics of these adjectives, and then elucidated the relations between the semantic factors and the syntactic features. The points made clear are that in the TOUGH construction"John is easy to please,"to please and easy constitute the subject-predicate relation and also that they collectively serve as a single complex pre … More dicate describing the surface subject. That is, this sentence can be paraphrased as"John is such that to please him is easy."The easy in"John is easy to please"and that in"It is easy to please John"are analyzed as different lexical entities in terms of argument structure. The former is a part of the complex predicate easy-to-please where to please satisfies one of its arguments, and the latter is an independent predicate that takes the argument structure [Theme (Experiences)].With W-CLASS ADJECIVAL constructions, at issue is why only these adjectives can take of NP. I have made it clear that the evaluation factor in the semantics of these adjectives are responsible for anchoring the PP. Thus with adjectives like slow (John is slow to finish the job.), this PP is impossible as in"^*It is slow of John to finish the job."Of can be analyzed as an linguistic form that realizes the agent of the relevant act and the evaluated person.As stated above, the present research has claimed that the fine-grained adjectival semantics can explain the syntactic features of the major adjectival constructions. Less